New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Had a Breakup

The firing of New York Times Company CEO Janet Robinson last year was complicated, in part, by the involvement of an influential force from outside of the building: the girlfriend of the paper’s chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. According to whispers reported by New York’s Joe Hagan, Sulzberger was “madly, and conspicuously, in love” with Claudia Gonzalez, “an elegant and statuesque Mexican marketing executive” and “a pedigreed jet-setter,” for whom he was willing to travel — a lot. Now Capital New York reports that the high-powered pair have split, though her mark on the companyremains.

“Robinson, according to former colleagues at the paper, was growing annoyed with what she saw as Gonzalez’s undue influence on her boss, his forays with her cutting into the weekly face time Robinson had grown accustomed to having with him over the years,” Hagan wrote. “The tension between Robinson and Gonzalez, with Sulzberger in the middle, seemed to signal a shift at thepaper.”

As a replacement for Robinson, who left with an exit package worth close to $24 million, Sulzberger brought in Mark Thompson, whose own issues with the scandal at the BBC have made for more bumps at the paper. Originally scheduled to answer questions on the matter — and the future of the Times — later this month, Thompson announced today that his companywide town hall meeting will be delayed until early 2013, after an inquiry into the mess at his former employer is released. In the meantime, everyone can just enjoy the holidays. For Sulzberger & Co., it’s been a long enough yearalready.

#BREAKING: I’m told the entire @BPDAlerts Emergency Response Team has resigned from the team, a total of 57 officers, as a show of support for the officers who are suspended without pay after shoving Martin Gugino, 75. They are still employed, but no longer on ERT. @news4buffalo

In case you were wondering about the unmarked federal agents dotting Washington

Few sights from the nation’s protests in recent days have seemed more dystopian than the appearance of rows of heavily armed riot police around Washington, D.C., in drab military-style uniforms with no insignia, identifying emblems or names badges. Many of the apparently federal agents have refused to identify which agency they work for. “Tell us who you are, identify yourselves!” protesters demanded, as they stared down the helmeted, sunglass-wearing mostly white men outside the White House. Eagle-eyed protesters have identified some of them as belonging to Bureau of Prisons’ riot police units from Texas, but others remain a mystery.

The images of such heavily armed, military-style men in America’s capital are disconcerting, in part, because absent identifying signs of actual authority the rows of federal officers appear all-but indistinguishable from the open-carrying, white militia members cos-playing as survivalists who have gathered in other recent protests against pandemic stay-at-home orders. Some protesters have compared the anonymous armed officers to Russia’s “Little Green Men,” the soldiers-dressed-up-as-civilians who invaded and occupied western Ukraine. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to President Donald Trump Thursday demanding that federal officers identify themselves and their agency.

To understand the police forces ringing Trump and the White House it helps to understand the dense and not-entirely-sensical thicket of agencies that make up the nation’s civilian federal law enforcement. With little public attention, notice and amid historically lax oversight, those ranks have surged since 9/11—growing by roughly 2,500 officers annually every year since 2000. To put it another way: Every year since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the federal government has added to its policing ranks a force larger than the entire Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).